


Twenty Seconds

by TimmyJaybird



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, tiny little ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/pseuds/TimmyJaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The only heaven I'll be sent to, is when I'm alone with you.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to "Take Me to Church" and that one line gave me this tiny idea. Also, sometimes it's nice to write a ficlet and not have it turn into a beast.

He could smell the air, smell every bit of dust within it, perfumes and gasoline mingling to give him Gotham’s story. From up high, on the rooftops, it was muted, but there was never a way to escape it. The Joker inhaled deeply, let it fill his lungs, give his brain a quiet buzz to set against the sounds of wind, of traffic below. He heard it all.

He heard those heavy boots behind him.

A moment later arms wrapped round his waist from behind, a solid body pressing up along his back. He sighed. Leaning his head back onto the Bat’s shoulder, enjoying the squeeze he got to his waist. Why, up here, it was perfectly find for the man to hold him like this.

Maybe _down there_ , to the city, the Joker would be expected to squirm away and Batman would be expected to shove him fast first into a brick wall- and while that was _so enticing_ , it was nice that up here, above the City and it’s rules, the Joker was free to be given affection.

“Do tell me we’re in for, ah, a little run tonight _darling_?” The Bat leaned down, pressed his mouth to the side of the Joker’s neck, had the clown shivering. “I do love our runs.”

“Whatever you want.” One hand splayed on the Joker’s belly, toying with the buttons on his shirt, and the Joker smirked, squirming in Batman’s hold until he was facing him, pressing up into every curve of his body.

“ _Whatever_ I want? Why, dollface, careful with your words. You could give a girl the wrong idea.” The Joker winked, reaching up to grasp fistfulls of Batman’s cape, holding onto him. He leaned up, pressed his red mouth to the Bat’s, reveled in the feeling of his lover’s stubble tickling his chin, the way Batman’s mouth yielded to easily. Years of hatred, of denial, all gone now, all liquid beneath fingertips, rivets in the past.

The Joker hooked an arm around his Bat’s neck, smiling into the kiss, his stomach tight with knots. He could cling to him forever, climb right into his Bat’s suit and skin-

But then he was pushed away, gently so, and the Bat gave him a smile. “Twenty seconds,” he whispered, and the Joker’s face lit up. Without hesitating he turned on his heel, breaking out in a run across the building.

When he jumped at the ledge, time stood still for a moment. He stretched, the sounds of the world fading away, the air no longer moving- only his body, until his feet landed on the next building, about a story lower, and he was crouching, pushing himself up with his hands and running again.

Twenty seconds was all he had to create distance before his Bat was after him.

He reached the fire escape on the opposite side and leapt onto it, choosing to climb over the side, sliding down metal bars until he dropped the last story, landing on his feet and taking off down the dark alleys. He knew, above him, his darling was moving, running with the wind, becoming the shadows that would seep around him, close him in and cut him off, suffocate him so sweetly.

He reached a chain fence and was half up it before he even breathed. The Joker had spent so long running from his Bat it was simply nature. He didn’t tell his body how to react, he simply moved. Now though, the fluttering in his chest wasn’t the hopes of _escape_ , but the joy of inevitably being caught. The thrill of that sweet reunion.

On the other side of the fence he heard it, the dropping of those boots behind him, that cape in the wind. He knew all the little sounds of his Bat, down to the way the man breathed. He also knew if he could hear him, then his run was going to be terribly short.

The Joker threw himself down another alley, twisting and turning behind Gotham’s old buildings, until the sounds were gone. Grinning to himself, thinking perhaps he had bought another good minute of time, he rounded the corner, only to smack into Batman’s chest, to have one arm hook around him and pull him into the shadows. The Joker yelped, pressed into his Bat as Batman’s back dug into the old brick wall, as he sank a hand into the man’s green curls and pulled him in, kissing him hungrily.

The Joker pushed into him, hiking his leg up along the Bat’s thigh, clung to him and his lover’s other hand traced the curve of his side. “Clever Bat,” he breathed, smiling, as a tongue flicked the juncture of scar and lip.

“Did you think you’d get away?” More kisses along the curve of his scarred smile, and the Joker’s brain was hot, _hot_ , muddled and cotton filled and that was just fine. His ribcage echoed with the crashing butterflies within, and as the Bat kissed his neck he tipped his head back, closing his eyes as teeth grazed his pulse point-

And his temples, deep within his skull, a sudden biting pain, enough to make him cry out. Again, again, it seemed endless, pulsing rapidly, and he was biting his tongue, flailing, but those arms, those strong, knowing arms were around him, clutching him, crushing bone to keep him still. He gasped for breath, felt his body shaking, had no thoughts to put to what was happening. Suddenly it was all gone, his mind was wiped clean.

Gotham faded, became nothing but a shattered memory. The Bat’s arms became leather straps, warn around the holes where they had been closed endless times. And suddenly it was Arkham, it was always Arkham, and the Joker had far too many volts of electricity being wired straight into his skull, to the point of convulsion.

A nurse tapped her pen on her clip board, the doctor next to her cutting the power to the machine and stepping closer. He leaned over the man, pulled at one of his eyelids and stared at that green eye, the pupil blown.

“He’s bitten his tongue,” the nurse pointed out, a line of blood forming along the seam of his lips. The doctor frowned. They had not given him something to bite down on- a mistake they had made many times before. Not that anyone cared about the Joker’s state within Arkham’s walls. He was the trash of the city, Gotham’s unwanted. What they did to him here, it would go unnoticed.

“Get him back to his cell,” the doctor said, and the nurse set her clipboard down, gathering the guard at the door to help her. They settled the Joker’s thin frame into a wheel chair, made their way through the dank hallways of Arkham’s basement to his cell. Once there, the guard lifted him, carried him to his bed. In this stranger’s arms, he was simply skin and bone- the hollows of his ribs prominent beneath his clothing, the bones of his hips poking through skin. He had withered to nothing.

“Same time Wednesday,” the nurse said to the guard as they locked the doors again. “The doctor wants his electroshock therapy upped to three times a week, from two. Thanks for doing all the heavy lifting.”

They laughed as they walked away, leaving the Joker alone in the dimness. Behind his eyelids though, Gotham had returned, and once again he was pressed along the curves of his Bat, those hands holding him, with twin heart beats creating a rhythm to carry him straight to heaven-

The only heaven he’d ever see again, lost inside his head with the wind and his beloved.


End file.
